“Teen Wolf” 3.12: World War Wolf

Previously on Teen Wolf, Allison and Scott and Stiles took some ice baths with their clothes on, clutching their parents’ prized possessions, so the god of frozen voodoo would reveal the location of the Celtic treehouse where their moms and dads were being held hostage. Isaac and Dr. Deaton and Lydia, respectively, performed the freezing ceremony on their loves. Derek gave up his alpha powers to save Cora‘s life while Peter Hale sat on the steps and watched and ate a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and chased it with an Ice Breakers wintergreen mint and washed it down with an Aquafina water and pulled up the Machiavellian Chess app on his AT&T LG phone. Also, Jennifer Blake murdered nine people, with an eye toward murdering 12 people, because she wants revenge on Deucalion, for one thing, but mostly because she wants the power to be a pretty, pretty princess full-time.

Allison and Scott and Stiles wake up from their ice baths in a bright white warehouse like what might be heaven’s waiting room. Stiles is wet and he’s got bare feet and his shirt is dripping wet and so are his pants, and his forearms and biceps flex flex flex when he gets out of the ice bath tub with his wet clothes because he’s wet. Same with Allison and Scott, but less so.

They walk slowly toward the end of the warehouse where a giant tree stump is waiting on them, and they take it in turns to flashback to the pilot episode, the night of Scott’s bite. Scott watches himself get bitten by Peter Hale, stumbling upon this very tree stump in the process. Stiles watches himself get marched home by his dad, passing this very tree stump on the way. And Allison, it turns out, was in that car that almost hit Scott. Victora — hey! hey, Victoria Argent! Miss you everyday, girl! — was driving, and she reluctantly turned around to see if she mowed over a teenage boy. Allison wandered into the woods where she found an asthma inhaler and the tree stump.

This scene in heaven’s waiting room is one of the most visually stunning ones Teen Wolf has ever done, and it has actually taken a lot of bold directing chances this season. The brilliant radiance compared to the nearly monochrome blacks and blues of regular Beacon Hills, the way the camera keeps the three of them with all that negative space, the eerie angles that are just off-center enough to make you feel uneasy. It’s awesome.

When Allison and Scott and Stiles wake-up, they know exactly where they need to go to save their parents, but Isaac and Deaton and Lydia, all of whom are styled exactly the same as they were at the beginning of the ice bath ritual, with nary a wrinkle in their clothes or a hair out of place, explain that those guys were out cold, literally, for 16 hours. “It’s like you slept from one climax to the next climax,” Deaton explains. “Or like whoever was plotting out the time in the final arc of this season doesn’t know how to count backwards.”

On the plus side: None of them seem to be suffering any immediate trauma from that black ring Deaton told them would be around their hearts forever.

As everyone is getting packed up for their trip to the Nematon in the realm of the living, Scott says he’s decided to meet up with them in a bit. He’s got a date with Deucalion to kill Jennifer, and according to Deucalion, he just can’t do it without Scott by his side. Isaac rolls his eyes, goes, “I AAAM THEEE DEEEMOOOON WOOOLLLF! That guy? That’s the guy you’re trusting to not have over-dramatized your involvement in the destruction of the Darach?” But Scott will not be dissuaded. Once per season he is endowed with a plan. Tonight is that night. Also unable to accompany the Scoobies to the Nematon is Lydia. Ethan shows up and asks her to help him save Derek.

Over at the Hale Hole, Cora is nursing Derek back to health as thanks for sacrificing his alpha powers to save her life. And of course, Peter is doing sock ballet up and down the loft, sliiiiiding this way and sliiiiiding that way and twirling and singing about how Derek isn’t an alpha anymore. Oh, and also, he thinks Derek should get out of town pretty much immediately because Kali is coming to kill him at the full moon and he’s barely got enough strength to hold his beautiful head up straight, so there’s no way Derek’s going to be able to fight her and survive. Derek refuses to go until Lydia shows up and says she feels like she’s standing in a graveyard because there is no furniture in this place and also there are blood stains all over the floor and walls and ceiling from all the people who have died here in the last month. She says Derek is doomed if he doesn’t skedaddle. So, he skedaddles.

As soon as he’s gone, Kali shows up, her toenails click-clacking away on the tile floor. Lydia’s like, “Aw, sorry, honey, Derek stepped out to pick up his dry cleaning and buy some groceries at Whole Foods. Just a normal werewolf afternoon. You know what strip mall I’m talking about, right? The one with that really nice pedicure place? Speaking of which…”